


Corazon Espinado

by ladivvinatravestia



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Enemies to Friends, F/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Past Relationship(s), Redania Room, Sexual Harassment, canon-typical poor decision making, everyone is poly because witchers, graphic descriptions of food and drink, military intimidation, misuse of Dolly Parton lyrics, oh no there was only one bed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24688993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladivvinatravestia/pseuds/ladivvinatravestia
Summary: Post-dragon hunt, Yennefer and Jaskier go to Nazair, where they discover coffee together and learn a few things about each other along the way.
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion & Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 20
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [SwashbuckLore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwashbuckLore/profile) for the beta!
> 
> Nazair is based on Turkey because I enjoyed such amazing hospitality and a lot of really delicious fresh juice and coffee when I was there and it’s full of the archaeological remains of so many different civilizations.
> 
> The current plan is to post new chapters of this work every Friday. I might be adding some additional tags but there are no current plans for the rating or archive warnings to change.
> 
> Additional warnings: past Geralt/Yennefer; past Geralt/Jaskier; past Istredd/Yennefer; re the “military intimidation” tag - you know the scene in “Before A Fall” where Yennefer arrives in Nazair and the authorities ask for her papers? It’s the same scene, but the authorities are slightly more in-your-face about their demands.

To say Yennefer is surprised to find Jaskier stumbling down the mountain after her is a bit of an understatement. They’ve never exactly liked each other.

“Oh, piss off,” she says. “Don’t tell me he sent _you_ to convince me to take him back.” There is, of course, no need to clarify which “him” they are talking about.

“Nope,” says Jaskier succinctly. It’s possibly the shortest sentence she’s ever heard him utter.

“Well, where is he, then?” she asks. “Aren’t you two practically married?”

“Oh, I’m possibly just the teensiest bit mad at him right now,” Jaskier allows.

Yennefer grins, then stops to let him catch up. “No, this is too good,” she says, taking his arm. He glares and makes a half-hearted motion toward pulling away. “What did he do?”

“Oh, only tried to tell me all his bad life choices were my fault, so, the usual,” says Jaskier. It sounds like this is maybe an argument he’s already had with Geralt a time or two, but still,

“What an arsehole!” exclaims Yennefer.

“Yes, quite,” agrees Jaskier. “At any rate, he should be feeling properly ashamed of himself by nightfall, so I’m thinking we can take a room in the Pensive Dragon, order a nice private supper and a bath, get him to prove to the both of us how truly sorry he is -”

Yennefer is letting herself get lost in the admittedly very appealing fantasy of having Geralt naked on his hands and knees begging before her when she remembers - again - that all of her feelings for him are fake.

“No, fuck that and fuck you,” she says, dropping Jaskier’s arm. “You said you didn’t come here to apologize on his behalf!”

“I didn’t and I’m not; haven’t you been listening to me?” says Jaskier.

“I never listen to men if I can help it,” Yennefer retorts.

“No, I hadn’t noticed,” Jaskier fires back, crossing his arms and cocking his head.

Yennefer hadn’t made any plans at all for what she’d do after the dragon hunt. Or rather, all of her plans had centred around using the materials she planned to gather to get her fertility back. Some had even revolved around which man she was going to use to father her child. Geralt had featured in the majority of those plans, even though he was a logical impossibility, witchers being just as sterile as sorcerers. Jaskier had featured in a fair few - they might hate each other, true, but he wasn’t at all bad-looking, and his close relationship with Geralt had felt important at the time. Istredd had also featured a number of times - as a sorcerer, he was another logical impossibility, but he had been possibly the only man to ever love her for who she truly was, not what she looked like on the outside. 

Yes, actually, he’s just the person she needs to go see right now. And she needs to get out of here as soon as she can, before Geralt of fucking Rivia shows up in person and crumbles all of her resolve. She opens up a portal.

“Whoa, no, Yennefer, wait, where are we going?” asks Jaskier.

“ _I_ am going to Nazair,” says Yennefer, stepping towards the portal. “ _You_ can go to hell, for all I care.”

Jaskier gets between Yennefer and the portal.

“What the fuck is in Nazair?” he asks.

“Former paramour,” she says sweetly.

“That is a _shit_ reason to go to Nazair,” says Jaskier.

Yennefer steps around him and through the portal.

“Yennefer -” he exclaims, and follows her through.

Jaskier is apparently unused to portal travel, because he emerges on the other side flat on his face. Yennefer crouches down.

“What are you _doing_?” she hisses. “I don’t need you tagging along on this!”

“Ow,” mumbles Jaskier, then scrambles to his knees, reaching for his lute case. “My lute, is my lute okay?”

As Yennefer is watching this embarrassing little display, threatening shadows loom overhead, partially blocking out the scorching sun. She looks up to see four armored Nilfgaardian soldiers. In her experience, black fabric is stifling enough - how they aren’t passing out in full plate in this heat she isn’t sure.

“Safe conduct?” demands one.

Yennefer stands up. It would be easier to give them a look of haughty disdain if she were taller. She’s calculating how to bluff her way through this when Jaskier says,

“Papers, yes, I’m sure I have them somewhere here.” He pulls his lute case onto his lap and opens a compartment that is stuffed full to almost bursting with loose leaves of paper. “Now let me see -”

Yennefer pinches her nose. Goddess preserve her from idiots. The soldiers look at each other. Jaskier keeps up a steady stream of perfectly anodyne chatter about this bardic competition and that noble wedding until he finally pulls something out in triumph, jumping to his feet. A few pages of hastily scribbled lyrics fall out into the dust, and the soldiers laugh.

“Here you are, gents, safe conduct from the King of Redania, for one bard and one sorceress,” says Jaskier, smiling a very winsome smile and holding out the letter of safe conduct. That appears to have a very genuine Redanian royal seal hanging off the bottom of it.

One of the soldiers scowls at the document. The second one says, “What’s your business in Nazair?”

“I’m here to study the ruins,” lies Yennefer.

“And what about the bard?” sneers the soldier.

“Oh, isn’t that obvious?” asks Yennefer, raising an eyebrow. She reaches down and squeezes Jaskier’s arse. It’s quite a nice, firm arse. He yelps.

“Go on, then,” says the soldier, handing the letter of safe conduct back to Yennefer. She passes it offhandedly back to Jaskier and starts off toward the dig tent, where she can see Istredd.

Jaskier takes the safe conduct and stuffs it, apparently carelessly, back inside his lute case. As he makes to follow behind Yennefer to the dig tent, she notices the soldier making his own grab for Jaskier’s arse. Jaskier makes a face, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Convenient,” she comments, when they’re out of the soldiers’ earshot, “that you just so _happened_ to have a letter of safe conduct for one bard and one sorceress floating around in there.”

Her estimation of him is starting to improve. Before, she’d always thought of him as a particularly pretty idiot whose company Geralt tolerated for somewhat self-evident reasons. Now, though - well, Geralt hadn’t ever struck her as particularly shallow, actually.

“Yes, well, one never knows when one’s _very dear friend’s very dear friend_ is going to whisk one away on an exotic last-minute package tour,” comments Jaskier.

“And just how many other types of letters of safe conduct do you have floating around in there?” Yennefer asks.

“I will have you know,” huffs Jaskier, “that at least half those papers are songs.”

“Which means the other half are false papers?” counters Yennefer, her eyebrow raised. She takes his arm again.

“I think if you examine the seals, you’ll discover that not one of them was forged,” says Jaskier in an undertone, then continues, in a voice much more designed to carry, with, “I’m even writing a song for you; would you like to hear it?”

“No,” says Yennefer quellingly, but Jaskier begins singing nonetheless.

_“Your beauty is beyond compare,_  
_With flowing locks of raven hair,_  
_With flawless skin, and eyes of violet sheen,”_

He’s smiling as he sings, and though the words are complimentary so far, Yennefer can’t help but assume there will be some kind of sting in the tail.

“Oh, please,” she says, and rolls her eyes.

_“Your smile is like a breath of spring,_  
_Your voice is soft like summer rain -”_

“- it’s really not -”

_“- and I cannot compete with you -”_

And, there it is. But there, also, with perfect timing, is Istredd, and so Yennefer drops Jaskier’s arm without any further social niceties and strides forward to greet Istredd, both hands outstretched and a smile she only partially has to fake on her face.

“Yes, I thought you’d like it,” Jaskier calls after her.

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I guess Nilfgaard is either Elizabethan England or the USSR ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

As Yen is sitting down to bare her soul to Istredd in an attempt to rekindle their relationship, she notices that Jaskier has made the acquaintance of a strikingly handsome man. His oiled, well-coiffed hair is black’ and his skin is a few shades darker than her own, and, though he’s wearing armor, he nonetheless has the faint aura of a sorcerer shimmering around him. Instead of mugs of ale, they have very small maiolica cups standing by while a small copper vessel heats over a burner on their table. While they wait for whatever it is, Jaskier leans well into his new friend’s space, touching him on the forearm as they talk and occasionally glancing away coyly. If Yen had been asked this morning, she would have said it was just more evidence that Jaskier loved to flirt, that he fell in love with everyone he met. Now, she wonders if there’s something more going on beneath the facade.

“At least you kept your eyes,” says Istredd, and excuses himself abruptly from the table.

Yen blinks in shock at his empty chair. That went - much worse than expected. She’s grown unused to being unable to charm men to do her bidding. As she’s still processing this, Jaskier slides into the empty chair and takes her hand.

“Yennefer, darling, he didn’t deserve you,” he says.

Yen blinks again, coming back to herself. “Of course he didn’t,” she says.

“Do come join us, we are about to sample the local drink of choice,” Jaskier continues. He rises to his feets, still holding her hand - good court etiquette. Well, she’s always known he had it, even if he chooses to spend his life trailing around in the wilds after a Witcher. She rises to her feet, equally properly, and tucks her hand around his elbow, but says,

“The ale here is complete shite.”

“No, no,” smiles Jaskier, “the Nazairans don’t drink ale; they consider it an uncivilized Nordling drink fit only for dulling the senses. Vilgefortz is about to introduce me to coffee, you ought to join us. And, as we are become such good friends now, I must insist that you call me Julian.”

He gives her arm a light squeeze in warning, and she squeezes back in response. He is rather famous in the North, she supposes, as is Geralt. She can understand why he might not want it to be known that he’s making a surprise visit to Nilfgaardian territory.

“Lady Yennefer, may I present Vilgefortz of Roggeveen,” says Jaskier, when they reach the other table. “Vilgefortz, this is Lady Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

Yen holds her hand out coolly and Vilgefortz raises it to his lips.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lady Yennefer, but we don’t have much time,” says Vilgefortz. Jaskier pulls out a chair for Yen to be seated in.

“Why’s that?” Yen asks.

Vilgefortz flicks his eyes towards Jaskier, who says, “Oh! I’ll just, ah, find something to do elsewhere for a few minutes, why don’t I?”

He bows and leaves their table in the direction of the bar.

“Nilfgaard is conscripting mages, like us,” says Vilgefortz. “Now, since I don’t have a letter of safe conduct, and yours is probably fake, we should go before any of these army lads start asking questions.”

“Go where?” asks Yen.

Vilgefortz drops his voice to even more of a whisper. “Aretuza,” he says.

Yen laughs and buries her face in her hands. That’s the last place she has any plans on going any time soon.

“Well, the feeling is mutual,” says Vilgefortz. “The chapter thinks you’re rash, unpredictable, and dangerous. But right now, that’s exactly what Tissaia and I need.”

“Tissaia asked for me?” says Yen, feeling her interest piquing despite her best intentions. Gods damn it, she thought she was well past craving her old mentor’s approval by now.

“She said you were the best student she ever taught,” says Vilgefortz, and the empty feeling that has been sitting in the pit of Yen’s stomach all day starts to melt away. She  _ isn’t _ a complete fuck-up. There  _ is _ someone out there who actually likes her just the way she is, someone who wants to see her, who might need her help.

So she’s slightly annoyed when Jaskier interrupts, coming back to the table and putting a hand on Vilgefortz’ arm. “The coffee, it’s foaming now - what do we do next?”

Vilgefortz smiles indulgently. “Hold on to that thought a moment, would you, my lady?” he says to Yennefer. She looks up at Jaskier, giving him a smile she hopes he will understand is composed mainly of daggers, but he shrugs and sits back down, putting a third maiolica cup on the table.

Vilgefortz takes the copper vessel by the handle and removes it from the heat, using a small spoon to share out foam into each of the three cups. He returns the vessel to the burner, and Yen looks dubiously into her cup.

“It’s not quite finished yet,” Vilgefortz says.

“I don’t intend to offend, but it looks like something I skimmed off the top of a cesspool,” she says.

Jaskier, far more foolhardy, picks up his cup and sniffs it. It seems nobody has ever taught him the technique of wafting unknown essences toward himself, because he sticks his nose right over the rim of the cup and inhales.

“Oh, but it smells divine,” he says, eyes half-closed.

Vilgefortz smiles. “There’s a reason why it’s such a popular drink in the southern parts of the Continent,” he says.

The remaining liquid in the copper pot hits the boil, and Yen has to admit, it does smell rather intriguing. A rich, dark, earthy scent, entirely unlike ale.

“Ah, here we go,” says Vilgefortz. He removes the copper pot from the burner to share out the drink among the three cups.

“You may want to let it cool just a bit,” says Vilgefortz, as Jaskier tentatively puts his fingers on his cup and quickly withdraws them again.

Curious despite herself, Yen asks, “What’s it made of?”

“A type of roasted, ground bean, I believe,” says Vilgefortz.

“And what are these?” asks Jaskier, poking at the brightly-colored cubes covered in white powder piled artfully on a plate in the middle of the table.

Vilgefortz makes a face. “An acquired taste, I’m afraid. The locals call them  _ loukoumi _ .”

Jaskier immediately grabs a bright pink cube and pops it, whole, into his mouth. His eyes go wide. “Mmmph!” he exclaims, his hand hovering in front of his face like he’s considering spitting the  _ loukoumi _ out just as abruptly as it went in. 

Yen looks down, attempting to hide a smile. Vilgefortz is slightly more successful at hiding his own reaction, swirling his cup of coffee thoughtfully and then drinking it all in one go.

Yen carefully touches her cup and, judging that it’s cool enough to try, raises it to her lips for a cautious sip. It’s almost nothing like what it smells like. Earthy, yes - a bit smokey, a bit spicy, but also, unexpectedly, bitter. She keeps her expression as neutral as she can while swallowing it.

“What do you think?” asks Vilgefortz, and he’s definitely asking about more than just the coffee.

Jaskier swallows the  _ loukoumi _ with an audible gulp and then takes a sip of the water set out on the table.

“Rosewater and pistachio,” he says, “that’s certainly a flavour combination you don’t see in the North.”

Yen reaches forward to pat him on the arm. “No, about the coffee, darling,” she says.

“Oh! Ah -” says Jaskier, and downs his cup of coffee. He closes his eyes, throwing his head back in a way that bares his throat, and moans in exactly the way Yen imagines he must when Geralt is - no, she really doesn’t need to think about that right now.

Vilgefortz looks at her, amused. “Shall we?” he suggests.

“Shall we what?” asks Jaskier, looking startled, although Yen is by now convinced that he has been paying full attention to the conversation.

“To Aretuza,” says Vilgefortz, and stands up.

“What, right now?” asks Jaskier, and picks up another cube of  _ loukoumi _ .

“Yes, darling, by portal,” Yen says. Hm. She still has a few mouthfuls of coffee left in her cup. It wasn’t so bad, perhaps, after all. She takes another sip. 

“Oh, but Yennefer, darling, you  _ promised _ we would go see the markets,” whines Jaskier.

“I did,” says Yen, drawing the words out to give herself time to think through why he might not want to leave right away. Her feet are killing her - it’s bloody hot here, and she has several hot spots inside her boots after hiking for several days in a row. And whatever Tissaia needs can surely wait another couple of hours - after all, it’s not exactly as though Tissaia ever came running the very moment that Yennefer needed her. Let her wait a bit, then.

“I simply can  _ not _ allow myself to be seen again at court after this little venture if I don’t have a new doublet to show for it,” Jaskier carries on. He continues, waxing rhapsodic about the types of rarities and antiquities he’d hoped to shop for, until Yen wonders whether he knows that sorcerors can read minds and that it will take more than just endless prattle to misdirect Vilgefortz, if that’s what he’s trying to do. Out of curiosity, she reaches out to see what’s going through his head - and gets a mindful of imagined silks and jewels, the remembered tastes of the coffee and loukoumi, and some graphic glimpses of what he’d like Yen and Vilgefortz to be doing to him. Interesting.

“All right, darling, I suppose we can afford to stay a little bit longer,” she says, smiling.

“Don’t leave it too long,” Vilgefortz warns her as he leaves. “The window of opportunity is closing fast.”

“Curious that Vilgefortz told you he didn’t want to be conscripted, when the quartermaster already has him on the payroll,” comments Jaskier, as he pours them each a second cup of coffee.

Yen looks over at the bar, where Jaskier had been when that part of the conversation occurred. It’s on the other side of the tent, with several rowdy discussions taking place between here and there. “You heard that from all the way over there?” she asks.

“Let a gentleman keep  _ some _ secrets,” says Jaskier with an enigmatic smile.

Fine. Yen files that away with the other things she’s learned about Jaskier today as a puzzle to work on later. “Okay, why would he lie about that?” she asks.

Jaskier shrugs and downs his second cup of coffee. “Ready to keep walking a bit more?” he asks.

Yen stops herself before she can throw her hands up in the air. “There’s no  _ way _ you can know about that!” she exclaims.

“You were favoring your right foot, and your usual confident stride wasn’t quite up to its normal ‘fuck you’ standards,” Jaskier explains.

“I fucking hate you,” hisses Yen.

“Yes, darling,” says Jaskier, taking her hand and patting it. “Good job I’m on your side, isn’t it?”

“Yen,” Yen says, pulling her hand back.

“Hmm?”

“If we are become  _ such good friends _ , you ought to call me Yen,” she explains. “Except, of course, when you are deferring to me in front of other people, at which time you may continue addressing me as Lady Yennefer.”

“Of course, Lady Yennefer,” says Jaskier. The bow he takes, as deferential as he can make it from a seated position, is at direct odds with the glint in his eye.

“Now, shall we?”

Yen holds her hand out to Jaskier, and when he helps her to her feet, she puts everything she can into walking as though nothing is wrong, even though each step now feels like walking on a bed of hot knives.

When they’re free of the tavern tent and walking in to the market, Jaskier says, “Now, Vilgefortz tried to get you to clear out right away for Aretuza -”

“ - he said Tissaia asked for me,” Yen interrupts.

“Mm-hmm, but he didn’t say why, right?”

“Why, what did he say to you?” Yen asks.

“Well, I played stupid -” begins Jaskier, and Yen can’t help but interrupt,

“ -which you do  _ so _ well -”

“ - yes, thank you so much, and I told him that we would be here as long as you intended, at which point he cautioned me that if I intended to fund our travels by performing, I ought to be aware that bards are prohibited from performing any works not on the list approved by the Imperial censors.”

“Imperial censors,” repeats Yen.

“Yes. So, are either of those things true? Is he trying to get us  _ to  _ Aretuza, or  _ away from _ Nazair? Or is there something else entirely going on? At the very least, it’s curiously convenient that he just so happened to be here when we showed up, isn’t it?” says Jaskier. He stops to examine a shelf full of elvish antiquities.

“Did they teach you to ask questions like that when you joined the Redanian secret service?” asks Yen in an undertone. “I swear Aedirn’s intelligence division was never even half so competent.”

Jaskier scoffs. “No, of course not. I learned to make sure I had more than one side of the story from Geralt.”

The mention of Geralt’s name hits Yen like a shard of ice spreading through her veins, putting an instant damper on her mood. She affects to be unaffected, surveying the antiquities and picking one up at random to turn over so she’ll have something to do with her suddenly shaking hands.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended music for this chapter:
> 
> Johnny Rivers (live) [Secret Agent Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHu_ekAq5Js)  
> Lorde [Everybody Wants to Rule the World](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smSSSs46rng)
> 
> Visit me on [tumblr](https://ladivvinatravestia.tumblr.com)!


	3. Chapter 3

“Ah,” says an elven shopkeeper, emerging from the darkened back of the shop, “madame is interested in cylinder seals.”

Yen looks down at the item in her hands and discovers - yes, it’s a large if otherwise unremarkable example of its type in soapstone.

“But this is only a poor representation of the collection, and I can see that madame is a lady of exquisite taste.”

“ - and means?” Jaskier suggests, under his breath. Yen gives him a quelling look.

“Please, I have many better pieces in the back,” says the shopkeeper, gesturing toward the cavernous back of the shop. Densely-packed rows of antiquities and trinkets recede into the shadows of an ancient elven ruin, now much shored-up with newer brickwork and timbers. “Come, join me for coffee, and we can discuss them.”

Jaskier nudges Yen gently on the arm, and, curious what he’s going to do with the opportunity, she accepts the shopkeeper’s offer. They sit on cushions at a low table and, over coffee and loukoumi - these ones orange and varying shades of green - Jaskier steers the shopkeeper through a variety of seemingly-innocent topics: business, local gossip, the shopkeeper’s family. Yen is surprised at how much information comes out of the chat - no, Nazair wasn’t conquered by Nilfgaard, everyone living in Nazair is now a full Nilfgaardian citizen; and by the way, Nilfgaardian citizenship and rights extend to non-humans as well; but the shopkeeper’s son and oldest daughter have both joined the Nilfgaardian army and have already been sent to march North. The shopkeeper doesn’t know where they are headed or what they will be doing.

“Now, about these seals,” says Jaskier, and Yen realizes that, yes, it would be impolite of them to have taken up so much of the shopkeeper’s time and not offered to purchase anything at all.

“Ah, yes,” says the shopkeeper, bringing out a strongbox and placing it on the table. “I have some fine Pellas-era specimens in faience, or -” He pulls a key from around his neck and opens the strongbox. “I have several seals in various semiprecious stones - lapis, carnelian, and amethyst, ranging from Caore-era through Tilara-era.”

Yen peers at the seals, pretending she knows enough pre-Conjunction Elvish history to understand how old that makes them. They’re beautiful, she supposes, but they don’t seem to be magical at all. “May I?” she asks.

“Please, madame,” smiles the shopkeeper.

Yen carefully picks one of the seals up -  _ not _ the amethyst one her eye is most drawn to - and turns it carefully in her hands. It features highly stylized botanical designs and something she recognizes as an earlier form of Elvish writing.

“Ah yes, the earliest specimen in the collection,” the shopkeeper says.

“So that makes it,” says Jaskier, and then counts on his fingers before saying, “almost five thousand years old.”

The shopkeeper inclines his head. “Nazair was only on the edges of the Caore empire, but occasionally we get some good finds.”

Yen picks up a different seal. On this one, the botanical designs are much more angular.

“Oh yes,” says the shopkeeper, “that one is from the Cedrela period. By that point we were a waypoint on a well-established trade route, so we get a lot more interesting artifacts.”

“What about this magnalith, or whatever it is they’re excavating out there right now?” asks Jaskier.

The shopkeeper makes a dismissive noise. “Oh, that’s only from the time of the Conjunction,” he says.

Yen smiles, and allows herself to finally pick up the amethyst seal she’s had her eye on since the start. It looks to have the same highly stylized botanical designs as the first seal she picked up.

“Ah yes, another one of our Caore-period finds,” says the shopkeeper. “Now that one is particularly fine.”

“May I?” asks Jaskier, and Yen hands it over to him to inspect.

He turns it over in his fingers - clever fingers, of course, and Yen finds herself idly thinking about how those fingers would feel against her skin - and then reads out its wording in poorly-accented Elder.

The shopkeeper sits up straighter, smiling broadly. “Ah, but sir, you speak the Elder tongue!” he says, in that language. “Why didn’t you say so at once?”

Jaskier scrunches his nose, mouthing the words to himself. Then, “Not - not that well, I’m afraid,” he replies apologetically, in the common tongue. “I studied it as a young man, at Oxenfurt, but that was, oh, some years ago now.”

Jaskier seems to miss the shopkeeper’s look of surprise, but Yen does not. She’s known him for - hmm, six or seven years now, but she never thought to ask how old he is. She’d known in an abstract kind of way that he was already an Oxenfurt graduate when they met, but he doesn’t really seem to have aged much since their initial meeting. It’s entirely reasonable for the shopkeeper to have mistaken him for a fresh graduate. She stores it up with all the other questions she means to ask him later.

He turns to hand the seal back to Yen, with a mischievous grin. “It means, hmm. Spiny heart? Spiky heart?” he says. “At any rate, very you.”

“ _ I _ speak Elder,” says Yen, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “It means Thorny Heart.” She switches to Elder to speak to the shopkeeper. “Thank you kindly for your hospitality. This has been a very pleasant afternoon.”

The shopkeeper bows his head over her hand. “Madame must accept the seal as a gift, of course,” he says, in common, and Yen switches back to that language as well.

“But you are too kind,” she says, rising to her feet. “I trust Julian will make you a gift of equal value.”

Yen is well-versed in magnanimously allowing her admirers to buy her baubles in an attempt to win her favor, but as she’s making this declaration, it occurs to her that she has no idea at all whether Jaskier is carrying any currency that the shopkeeper will accept.

“Of course, my dear,” he says, “you needn’t worry yourself about it,” and he reaches into his lute case to pull out a small silk purse fat with coins. Yen had maids and pageboys when she was at court in Aedirn, people to take her instructions and run errands for her. Lovers, even, from time to time. She’d taken care to seduce Eyck, so that he  _ should _ have been happy to treat her as an equal partner in their dragon hunting venture, and then that had all gone to shit in the first five minutes - and would have, if she’s honest, even if Geralt hadn’t been there. And now here is Jaskier, who by all rights should hate her for stealing his - what? Longtime paramour? - treating her as an equal partner, apparently for free? Clearly, there will be a price later, but he can seemingly be counted upon for now.

Once he has made a monetary gift of the appropriate sum, and asked the shopkeeper where he can get some coffee beans for himself, he links arms with Yen and they walk back out into the street. The sun is now a bit lower in the sky.

“I suppose now you’re going to tell me you also just happen to carry Nilfgaardian florens with you wherever you go,” Yen comments.

“Well, perhaps a few,” hedges Jaskier. “But I always carry a letter of exchange or two. Even in Nilfgaard, they’re happy to honour papers from the Vivaldi bank, even if the quartermaster bought it from me for a good deal less than it was worth.”

Yen frowns. “When did you have time to be selling letters of exchange inside the army camp?” she asks.

“Oh, while you were busy talking to your old friend,” says Jaskier. “I’m afraid I got quite turned around in there, took a couple of  _ very _ wrong turns while I was looking for the quartermaster’s tent. So silly of me, really.”

Yen bites down on a smile. “Let me guess, while you were lost you got a good look at how many men were in each unit and what kinds of weapons they were carrying.”

“Not just men,” says Jaskier, “but no, not as much of a look as I would have liked. A couple of sergeants helpfully found me while I was turned around and escorted me quite promptly to the garrison commander’s tent. She was not that pleased to see me.”

“But?” prompts Yen.

Jaskier smiles suggestively. “Well, I won’t lie, there might have been a time in my life when I would have offered to, erm, step aside and clear up the matter privately with her,” he says, “but I didn’t want to leave you waiting too long in the tavern in case you needed me. So, the bill of exchange.”

“Good of you,” says Yen, wondering if he might still have taken the first option if she hadn’t been here. She imagines it might have put him in a position to do even more snooping. But then, if she weren’t here, he wouldn’t be, either. “Are you - do you want to go back, now?” she asks.

“Well, it’s up to you,” says Jaskier. “You never did say why  _ you _ wanted to come here.”

And she’s not sure she’s ready to tell him, either.

“So I’m not sure if you’ve achieved it. But, if it were up to me, I think I wouldn’t mind staying a little longer to - see a little more of the local culture, since we have the opportunity,” he says, and Yen understands him to mean, gather intelligence on Nilfgaard. “And besides, I need to get some of these coffee beans to take back with us.”

They find a shopkeeper selling coffee beans, and the copper pots to prepare them in, set back into the portico of an old Elven building. The shopkeeper there walks them through how to brew a proper cup of coffee, which they then drink, and she insists that they must serve it with loukoumi, or at least  _ some _ kind of sweet. Yen finds she does, actually, like the orange ones and the light green ones. Jaskier remains unconvinced. They also learn that the shopkeeper’s daughter, who has been training as a sorceress, has been drafted into military service.

“Is that -” Yen starts, then stops to look over at Jaskier. His attention seems to have wandered again - he’s trying to read the Elvish runes that make up the tiled border near the shop’s ceiling. “Is that usual, for mages here?”

The shopkeeper frowns at her. “Isn’t it - I mean, don’t mages in the North have to serve in the military?” she asks.

“No, we’re trained to serve as advisors to courts or town councils,” says Yen.

The shopkeeper twists her hands around her coffee cup. “So you wouldn’t be able to tell me how worried I should be that my daughter’s unit is marching North,” she says, eyes downcast.

Yen thinks about the fact that the infantry units were also said to be marching North, and how detached Fringilla had seemed the last time she showed up to a meeting of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers.

“I would be - quite worried, I think,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

A silence falls over their group, then, and before even Jaskier can find a way to revive the conversation, a new group of customers walks in. They’re not in armor, but their clothes are - perhaps - military uniforms, a guess borne out by the speed with which the shopkeeper rises to serve them, calling the woman with the close-cropped hair in their midst “ma’am”. They don’t take a seat at one of the low tables but instead lounge, laughing, by the door.

Jaskier gives Yen a look she can’t quite decipher - later, she’ll realize he was inviting her to read his mind - and leaves a generous purse on the table for the beans and the coffee pot before rising to his feet and holding out a hand to Yen. She tucks her hand around his arm and they make their way for the door, but the woman the shopkeeper had deferred to - who Yen now realizes must be the garrison commander - shoots a hand out to grab Jaskier by the bicep.

“Oh, bard,” she says, in a deceptively sweet tone.

“Yes, ma’am?” says Jaskier, smiling easily. If he’s tense or nervous, Yen can’t tell either by his tone of voice or the way he’s holding himself.

“But this must be your noble patroness, in whose praise you were so effusive.”

Yen inclines her head, having no idea what Jaskier might have said about her.

“Madame,” says the commander, with a curt but courteous nod in Yen’s direction. “I trust the locals are cooperating to your satisfaction?”

Despite the antiques dealer’s assurances that all Nazairans are now considered full Nilfgaardian citizens, Yen picks up more than just a slight note of disdain from the commander. “Yes, quite,” she says.

“Well, if you’re on a shopping mission for Vizimir, I’ll make sure to report back to the Palace that he apparently has a taste for -” and here she licks her lips and eyes Jaskier up and down “- pretty baubles.”

Jaskier flutters his eyelashes and cocks his head coyly. Yen, annoyed on his behalf even though the commander’s guesses about their reasons for being in Nilfgaard are nowhere near the truth, tightens her own hand around his other arm and says,

“Come on, Julian, dear.”

“Julian, is it?” says the commander, still holding Jaskier’s arm as Yen tries to steer them through the door of the shop. “I do hope you’ll grace us with a performance tonight in the inn. I must admit I’m curious to hear a little of what you Nordlings call music.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended listening:
> 
> Santana [Corazon Espinado](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6omUxqhG78)  
> Stealers Wheel [Stuck in the Middle with You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMAIsqvTh7g)
> 
> Visit me on [tumblr](https://ladivvinatravestia.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended listening for this chapter: [Run Devil Run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ipkOZUrufc), the Glamour Girls.
> 
> Also, [Jolene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMrfM711vXI), obviously (this is the 33 rpm version).
> 
> Visit me on [tumblr](https://ladivvinatravestia.tumblr.com), where my ask box is always open!


End file.
